Website/Domain whitelisting

[pinkgothic]

I'm not sure about the IP limit, my bloodscales weren't gendering fast enough so I added about what.....500? views by opening another window and autorefreshing.

 

That's enough of an experiment for me. Super recent, too. Thank you for sharing!

 

Does anyone know if dragons still get sick from a large views <-> unique views mismatch, or if the 15:1 ratio is still considered healthy? Because if they don't get sick, then it's still not a problem (though important to note down, to prevent anyone getting alarmed).

 

(Edit: I put the info into the first post, since the suggestion hinges on whether a single person can viewbomb just using their connection (i.e. without fansites or fora or anything like that) or not.)

 

Note: It's currently unclear if a 15:1 views:unique-views ratio is healthy for dragons, since that can still be forced by a viewbomber. If you know whether or not dragons can get sick purely because of the views:unique-views ratio, please post. If it's an unhealthy ratio, this suggestion is, sadly, not worthwhile.

 

See this post and page two for more information.

 

(Differently worded: Can a single person and an autorefresher still make a dragon sick? If not, this is a worthwhile suggestion. If they can, however, this line of thought ought to be trashed, as it prevents nothing.)

Edited May 26, 2013 by pinkgothic

[DarkEternity]

I think that a 15 view limit cap per IP is actually a very good idea to prevent viewbombing, but it comes at the cost of us viewbombing our own dragons to hatch them (sometimes this is safer because you do it and you know that nobody is going to kill your dragons, then you can quickly hatch and fog the babies) + creating NDs.

 

This suggestion + a 15 view cap per IP would essentially be undefeatable in my opinion. After all, very rarely would a casual viewer exceed 15 views on a fansite. And like you said, it doesn't really matter if a referrer is forged because there are two safe guards in place: IP and referrer.

Edited May 26, 2013 by DarkEternity

[pinkgothic]

I think that a 15 view limit cap per IP is actually a very good idea to prevent viewbombing, but it comes at the cost of us viewbombing our own dragons to hatch them (sometimes this is safer because you do it and you know that nobody is going to kill your dragons, then you can quickly hatch and fog the babies) + creating NDs.

 

This suggestion + a 15 view cap per IP would essentially be undefeatable in my opinion. After all, very rarely would a casual viewer exceed 15 views on a fansite. And like you said, it doesn't really matter if a referrer is forged because there are two safe guards in place: IP and referrer.

 

Hmm, I'm definitely not opposed to a per IP view limit (seeing as until ylangylang's proof of otherwise I was convinced the 15-view-limit being per IP was the status quo), but... I can't gauge how huge an issue it would be for the Neglected experimenters. I've only tried to get an ND twice and both times were failures (in hindsight, perhaps obviously, if I had the misconception I did; anyway, I give up easily ), so I'm not a good gauge for how much this would make an already difficult process even more difficult.

 

...maybe it could be per-IP if this suggestion is toggled? That means ND experimenters could still just disable the whitelist while they accrue views for their babies.

 

Narrgh. I don't know. The very fact this isn't already done per-IP makes me think it'll need a substantial database change and every dragon view needs another JOIN, which... I don't know if that has a hope in hell of being done by TJ. But I agree with you that the combination would be great.

[DarkEternity]

I believe that NDs are commonly made in groups but I haven't tried so I don't know. *pokes thread sadly*

 

I think there was another suggestion very like yours that before an egg could be added to a fansite that you had to login to Dragoncave, also using the API or something? :c

 

Your suggestion would definitely cull the UVs possible as a result of viewbombing. It would give eggs a better chance of surviving. It's better than what we currently have.

Edited May 26, 2013 by DarkEternity

[pinkgothic]

Regarding the API login... do you mean this one?

 

There have been several suggestions over time how to deal with this, though the one that seems to be most-mentioned is making fansites use the API authorisation feature. The trouble with that is that it relies on every fansite complying... and it doesn't take care of the problem of someone putting your eggs in their signature on a high-traffic forum.

 

I imagine for people who have accepting aid turned off one could make the API-authorisation mandatory for sites that use the API at all... but I figure we're on our own for other places. Those shortcomings are why I keep tossing the whitelist idea into the ring.

[Ashes The Second]

Bombing with one person with a certain amount of views accumulated (the lowest I've ever bombed my scroll with was about 100) does make an egg sick. I can make my eggs sick on my own, and therefore only add them to hatcheries to get those numbers going. I always like high numbers on my views.

 

**I do not viewbomb anything but my own eggs/hatchlings, and never would.**

[pinkgothic]

Bombing with one person with a certain amount of views accumulated (the lowest I've ever bombed my scroll with was about 100) does make an egg sick. I can make my eggs sick on my own, and therefore only add them to hatcheries to get those numbers going. I always like high numbers on my views.

 

**I do not viewbomb anything but my own eggs/hatchlings, and never would.**

Thanks for the info!

 

Then this is only useful in combination with the per-IP limit. I'll adjust the first post.

[HeatherMarie]

I certainly do *not* agree with some arbitrary limit on how many views *one IP* can give a dragon. That just... makes no sense. And it would DESTROY all the ND-experiments that rely on self-view-bombing.

 

As I said before, I still think the best way to handle viewbombing is one of the proposed BSAs. Either that, or a simple limit on *overall* views a dragon can get, and *only* when it's most vulnerable. So, say, a 6 day egg can't get more then 300 views in (5 hours? How long?), but an ER egg (anything under 4 days) has no such restriction. That makes a LOT more sense, honestly.

[pinkgothic]

I certainly do *not* agree with some arbitrary limit on how many views *one IP* can give a dragon. That just... makes no sense. And it would DESTROY all the ND-experiments that rely on self-view-bombing.

Hmm, I don't think I understand - why would it bug you if it was optional?

[smurfettedoesnotshare]

I think whitelisting is a good idea, so that the user can control how and where their eggs can get views, thus negating a view bomber's efforts to rain on people's parades.

 

An IP limit has quite a few things that can wrong with it, especially as far as NDs are concerned, and with low-time AP finds that need to hatch/mature quickly or die.

 

A BSA to revive or heal a dead egg/hatchy from sickness might be a good option, as well; but, to me, the whitelisting option sounds like the best bet - offering the most user control with the least number of drawbacks.

[reddof-f6]

there was a BSA suggestion for the whites to have heal ability. that would really come in handy right now. or a resurrect BSA that works for eggs and hatchlings, not adults though. that brings them back to life.

[reddof-f6]

Hmm, I don't think I understand - why would it bug you if it was optional?

well, what if you set the limits, but for some reason ended up being away from your scroll for a long time. and your eggs don't get enough views to live?

[HeatherMarie]

Honestly, my biggest complaint at this point is simply: It's not needed.

 

It's looking like a fairly sure thing that Whites will end up with a Heal-type BSA, and there are *plenty* of variations of that BSA being proposed. I simply see no reason to make it any more complicated then a simple, straight-forward BSA.

[whitebaron]

You can gain views directly from dragcave.net. So whitelisting will never work against deliberate viewbombings that know how to fake a referrer.

 

Also, a per-IP limit seems very damaging to some peoples way of hatching their stuff. I'd rather have the BSA, as this works for cases were you overdid it yourself as well.

[quadibloc]

In my personal opinion, the way to respond to viewbombing is simple. Abolish dragon sickness. It was a nice idea, but the existence of viewbombing means it isn't working out. There must be zero chance for malicious people to hurt anyone but themselves - anything less is not justice.

[PointOfOrigin]

I don't know if this was suggested before, but could we add the eggs to fansites with our email addresses?

[DarkEternity]

Pointoforigin- That's an interesting idea although I'm not sure how it will be enforced....

Edited May 27, 2013 by DarkEternity

[PointOfOrigin]

I have no idea either. It just sounds as the closest thing to adding our scroll names. Email is more private then a scroll name. The email used would be the one tied to our scrolls, but that's all I can figure. Maybe somebody more tech savvy can pinch in?

[smurfettedoesnotshare]

I don't know if this was suggested before, but could we add the eggs to fansites with our email addresses?

It could be an added security feature, like padlock. You can set up a "security question" to enter the email connected with your account or use something else, if you'd want. But that's a hatchery addition and not attached to dragcave itself like the whitelisting would be.

[WinstonGA]

Something to keep in mind with whitelisting and such: it's putting eggs and hatchlings in signatures on other forums, and click-exchange sites, that helps publicize the Cave and bring in the new users to replace the churnover. I've seen DC critters in signatures on forums that have nothing whatsoever to do with games or computer-talk.

 

This means whitelisting sites risks killing off some of the Cave's word-of-mouth advertising if not done in certain ways.

 

To bring up some history (discussions in chat with TJ a couple of years ago) sickness and death were added waaaay back when as a means of stopping people from overloading the cave by giving their eggs 100x the views needed to make it hatch or grow up. The sickness level was far below what it took to actually kill, IIRC it originally was about 1/10th. Now that was years ago and things have undoubtably changed since then.

 

 

 

 

[PointOfOrigin]

If an owner doesn't put their eggs in signature, then nobody else has the right to do it.

 

Well, things usually take a lot of time here. Chances are that hatchery staff will do something sooner then TJ. Using email instead of scroll name would ensure that nobody can add your own scroll and combining that with hidding your scroll would ensure that nobody can get your egg codes. If we could also add our scrolls to fansites when they were hidden, that would be a nice cover up, until TJ gets around to doing something.

[kerrikins]

Something to keep in mind with whitelisting and such:  it's putting eggs and hatchlings in signatures on other forums, and click-exchange sites, that helps publicize the Cave and bring in the new users to replace the churnover.  I've seen DC critters in signatures on forums that have nothing whatsoever to do with games or computer-talk.

 

This means whitelisting sites risks killing off some of the Cave's word-of-mouth advertising if not done in certain ways.

 

To bring up some history (discussions in chat with TJ a couple of years ago)  sickness and death were added waaaay back when as a means of stopping people from overloading the cave by giving their eggs 100x the views needed to make it hatch or grow up.  The sickness level was far below what it took to actually kill, IIRC it originally was about 1/10th.  Now that was years ago and things have undoubtably changed since then.

This is a very, very, very good point... And one I hadn't considered, before. I think I'm going to have to move back to the camp of thinking that an in-cave change would be better than that sort of limitation...

 

I mean, how would someone even whitelist all the forums they might possibly use, right? That's my main concern.

Edited May 28, 2013 by kerrikins